


verklempt

by vounoura



Series: knife wife and staff loser [7]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Nirasa being an idiot, Pining, Romance, What else is new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 16:56:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15295971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vounoura/pseuds/vounoura
Summary: She stares at Naryu from across the bar - sipping at a drink that burns a little too much on the way down very gingerly - and feels a twinge of something deep in her throat.





	verklempt

**Author's Note:**

> A kinda-sorta prequel to sehnsucht.

She stares at Naryu from across the bar - sipping at a drink that burns a little too much on the way down very gingerly - and feels a twinge of _something_ deep in her throat.

It's a little weird, she knows - what kind of crazed madwomen stare at other women on the other side of the room? Not the fun ones, that's for sure - but the sun is setting and the light filtered through the opaque glass window stretches across Naryu's shoulders a room away and suddenly that's all she sees.

The light turns her hair a rich brown (she's cut it recently, short enough that the strands just barely graze her shoulders, and Nirasa wants to run her fingers through it before she stomps out that thought with a vengeance), and while black has always been Naryu's colour the brown reminds her of the verdant, almost black soils of the Ascadian Isles after a rain. For a moment Nirasa thinks that maybe, just maybe, this is an illusion and what she's really looking at is a Saint - _Saint Meris the Peaceful_ , she thinks, and then snorts because Naryu is anything but.

The light, she thinks, must be something magical - a blessing from Mother Morrowind or the Warrior-Poet or the Father of Mysteries, and she's half a moment away from throwing herself into the nearest temple in praise and thanks - as it tints her skin grey-gold in its wake. A poor facsimile of what once was, echoes of the long-lost and ancient Chimer, a stark reminder of the Queen of Dawn and Dusk's ire.

(She catches her daydreaming, then, and mentally asks herself what in her mother's name is wrong with her.)

She knows Naryu is bored because her nails are drumming against the countertop unceasingly, her gaze fixated somewhere undefined (though she knows that Naryu is as alert as usual, if not more so, if that were even possible). A throng of Imperials and Bretons and everything in between (sailors, mostly. If she were to pay attention to what they were saying she'd learn at least ten different expletives in three different languages in the course of about a minute) crowds the space between her and the other woman, all in different states of inebriation but all heading towards the same destination of a night in a cell for drunken disorder.

(Nirasa will admit, she's been in that position many a time herself. The Kvatch innkeepers know how to make a sweet drink that doesn't taste of alcohol, that's for sure.

And she has _such_ a weakness for drinks that taste of fruit and sweets.)

Her expression is...not _tight_ , exactly, but almost _contemplative_ in a way. It fades perfectly into a teasing, slightly-seductive smile she _knows_ has been trained when one of the men stumble a little too close, but smooths back out when their drunken attention gets caught by something else.

Nirasa knows she's waiting for her. In fact, she's pretty sure Naryu already knows she's arrived (Naryu knows a lot of things, and notices just as much if not more than she does. She's probably known Nirasa was here the moment she opened the door), and it's only a good six, seven-foot distance to cross between here and there - but something stops her. Her legs refuse to move, to cross that gap, and Nirasa remains rooted to her chair as if it were a physical part of her.

 _Just do it, you coward_ , something says a few long moments later, and perhaps its the indignity of being insulted by her own brain but she makes a movement before she thinks about it that feels too fast and the wooden chair scrapes against the stone floor with a sound that feels too loud and then Naryu is looking at her.

It's not an intense stare and the sound of the chair was surely drowned out by the din of the crowd - but the chair scrapes harshly against the floor and Naryu's gaze flicks to hers casually, as if she heard it despite that and it were a cue she was looking for, and holds it steadily.

(Her throat closes spontaneously, her tongue glues itself to the roof of her mouth. Her head feels like her mother has stuffed it with spidersilk, and any thoughts she had - which were none, but if she had any - fizzle out into nothing.)

It's only a few seconds, nothing more, before Naryu flicks her gaze away again and brings a clay cup to her mouth, but it feels like an era and Nirasa feels her ass hit the chair again, rough and painful.

(A warmth settles in the tips of her ears. She sips at her drink, coughs, and pretends it's the alcohol.)

Naryu's treating this like a game, she knows, as the damnable woman looks at everything and everywhere possible _except_ her. Her hands swirl her drink around in her cup lazily and Nirasa’s eyes rivet themselves to the length of her fingers and, _Ayem’s mercy_ , they really are quite long, aren't they?

(If she were to entertain that thought any further she thinks she’d have to run back to Anvil and throw herself into the harbour, so she stops it right there with what is probably the most willpower she has mustered in weeks.)

With what feels like the longest moment she has ever endured Naryu evidently gets tired of whatever little game they’ve been playing, because she sets the cup back down gently on the bar and maneuvers her way out of her seat with a grace Nirasa didn't think existed in a mer.

(She counts every step Naryu takes as she crosses the threshold, slipping easily between the spaces of sailors so drunk they can't feel their own extremities. She counts her steps because, try as she might, Nirasa can't look directly at her face, and her gaze slips down to her feet instead.

She throws back the rest of her drink in one smooth motion, and doesn't even cough this time.)

The chair opposite her pulls out with the same noise as before, and Nirasa feels herself swallow thickly. And then suddenly Naryu is right _there_ , across from her, and there's nowhere she can go or any excuse she can use and Naryu's smiling that usual slightly-amused, salacious smile of hers and Nirasa's mind well-and-truly _does_ go blank this time.

 _Ayem help me_ , she manages, as Naryu orders an entire bottle of wine (and she knows they will finish it, because they have both professed to a certain weakness for wines of all kinds). _I may not make it through this night._

**Author's Note:**

> Verklempt: 'too emotional to speak; choked up.'


End file.
